A Cold Day

Sunshine is beginning to take over this afternoon, after hiding most of the day. It was cold today. I think most of you would agree with me. Summit Chair was closed today as the winds over the ridge top were again too strong to allow for operation. All other lifts were operating, but I just saw that the gondola has gone on wind hold. Did I mention it was cold today? This afternoon winds at the Summit were blowing between 38 mph and 46 mph. The temperature was 15 degrees with a wind chill reading of -8.3 degrees. According to the Palisades website, the highest gust today ran up to 61 mph with a low temperature of 10.6 degrees.

It was a day to have heated boots and gloves, if you were lucky enough to own them. We are so spoiled today with all our heated ski gear. Even with all of this contemporary gear to keep us comfortable on cold days, most people I spoke to during the day said they were cold.

Ski safety week is still happening. As you might have noticed when riding a lift today, messages were once again painted into the snow near the on-ramps and off-ramps of various lifts. Some people paid attention to the safety messages, but many just shrugged them off. I sat on a couple of chairs today with people who did not make any effort to lower the safety bar for the entire ride. One ride was with a father and son. The son was not all that old and very tall. Many riders are just comfortable on a chair and do not think of lowering the safety bar. They do not think they will ever fall off for any reason, but they are wrong.

Even though it was cold, I enjoyed the skiing today. I found some very nice snow and some really horrible snow. By the way, it snowed about an inch, or maybe two, last night. This was not enough to consider today a powder day. However, there were some areas where winds had whipped snow into divots, or between moguls, creating places to turn in soft snow. The lower portion of a trail we call Chicken Leg was decent this morning. Groomed runs were lovely for the first few hours. We skied a portion of Gunner’s Knob and found places to turn in soft snow. I did not ride up the Alpine Bowl Chair today, but I heard one side of D8 was lovely as winds had blown snow in that location, making it soft and powder-like. However, getting to D8 was no easy or warm task.

My favorite tree run off Scott Chair proved to be in the best condition of all the runs I skied today. The underlying surface was, as it has been, firm winter snow. I do not mean to say that there were no icy patches, but the run down did not make loud noises as some of the other icy-filled trails have done this past week. There was enough new snow between moguls to soften my turns, making me forget the hard, loud trails I had endured earlier in the day.

We tried skiing Scott Meadow in hopes that its very low-angle slope would have enough snow built up on it to give us a powder-like surface.

We should have stayed home. Under the very thin, new, good-looking layer of snow was a very rough, hard, frozen surface. The kind you just want to get away from with your teeth intact. Scott Meadow was the worst run of the day. I also tried Power Line on the Sherwood side of the mountain. This is another low-angle slope. It was just as bad as Scott Meadow. I knew better, but I had to verify my knowledge in person. I actually thought the main groomed run at Sherwood was not all that bad. It was not a shaved-off ice rink at noon. If you know where East Creek is located, along the skier’s right of Weasel Trail, you would have found pleasant snow.

Another short treed area is Bill’s Hide-A-Way. This is not well known, but near the top of the TLC mid-station. We enjoyed some thin power turns through the trees in this area.

The Alpine area was not overcrowded today. Lines were reasonable today, but certain trails often look overcrowded, as they often do.

Enjoy your day.

Andy